Dr. Ekaterina (Katya) Gratcheva leads the finance function of the $10 billion Climate Investment Funds (CIF) that has mobilized over $65 billion for climate action across 325 projects in 72 developing and middle-income countries. CIF accelerates climate action by empowering transformations through clean technology, energy access, climate resilience, sustainable forests and is currently introducing new priority areas: the transition from coal, climate-smart cities, nature-based solutions, industry decarbonization, and renewable energy integration. She focuses on scaling up CIF resources through access to capital markets and financial innovation.

Katya is also a thought leader on sovereign ESG and sustainable finance. She brings critical thinking and practitioner experience to climate and sustainable finance grounded in evidence-based approach that separates reality from the rhetoric. Her widely cited sovereign ESG publications, such as “Demystifying Sovereign ESG” and “Rethinking Sovereign ESG”, raise fundamental issues about current sovereign ESG approaches and proposed solutions. She also focuses on developing alternative approaches and data sources, such as satellite data, as described in Spatial Finance: Challenges and Opportunities in a Changing World and Changing Wealth of Nations 2021: Managing Asset for the Future. She also advises Human Rights Measurement Initiative that measures countries’ performance on human rights and how that contributes to countries’ sustainability.

In her prior roles in the World Bank she focused on providing policy advice to central banks, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, facilitating long term finance through capital markets and strengthening the role of financial institutions in development finance, as well as managing World Bank’s assets and liabilities.

She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow State University, and a doctorate in Operations Research from George Washington University.